Are Recent Improvements in Healthcare Utilisation and Under-Five Mortality Inclusive in Kenya? Evidence Based on Selected Indicators from the Demographic and Health Surveys

摘要

The aim of this study is to investigate how the poor, relative to the wealthier, benefitted from recent improvements in health insurance coverage, maternity care utilisation (modern contraceptive use, antenatal care visits, facility delivery, and skilled birth attendants), and under-five mortality in Kenya. The analysis relies on the latest two waves of the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey and a theoretical framework with three different inclusiveness (pro-poorness) concepts. Our results are quite robust to pro-poorness concepts and poverty definitions. The main result is that the poor experienced larger improvements in all investigated health aspects compared to the rich (irrespective of the poverty concept) when changes are measured in relative terms. When we investigate changes in absolute terms, we find a similar pattern, except in the case of health insurance coverage and the presence of a skilled birth attendant during delivery. Our analysis is expected to inform policy-making aiming to achieve universal health coverage.